Cleveland Metropolitan School District and Starting Point/Universal Pre-K

Cleveland, OH

Calling All Dads

Tremont Montessori’s Action Team for Partnerships (ATP), other teachers, and administrators set a goal to help all students’ parents understand the important roles they play in their children’s social-emotional development. This contributes to students’ academic and social readiness for kindergarten and for a successful transition from preschool to elementary school. In addition, the school has focused on recommendations from its guiding organization, Universal Pre-K, to be intentionally father-friendly.

Each year, Tremont invites parents—with extra outreach to dads—to volunteer for a school trip. Last year, many dads and students visited Hale Farm and Village, an historic area and museum dating back to 1810 featuring the lives of early settlers in Ohio. This year, fathers and father figures were invited to join the children and teachers on a trip to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Fathers and community partners who volunteered as trip chaperones enjoyed discovering new exhibits at the museum with their own and other children. This included a discovery room with many learning activities and exhibits about animals, which were students’ favorites. Students had many questions about how animals live and why the live animals moved away when the students came through their areas. Students learned, first hand, that staying quiet was important for not scaring animals away. The connections of students with dads on the trip created opportunities for social interactions, connections with helpful adults, and sharing emotions and curiosity in seeing new and unusual exhibits.

Calling All Dads is featured in Promising Partnership Practices 2019.

Lakeshore STEAM Night

Night engaged families on topics in science, technology, engineering, art, and math, and introduced them to quality materials that they could use with their children at home. They also had opportunities to meet and network with other families and teachers. Tremont Montessori had a grant that linked the school with Lakeshore—a company for educational materials and games for school or for home. At the STEAM Night, 7 learning games were demonstrated and played by parents and students. Each family could select one game, paid for by the school’s family engagement grant.

Families came together to play all 7 games before they selected a favorite. These included construction, alphabet, counting, engineering, colors, and animal figure games. The children placed stickers with their names on a poster showing which learning game they selected. Then, they enjoyed dinner together. Parents were encouraged to meet and talk with other parents, and set up play dates with children who may have selected different games. Parents also visited students’ classrooms and saw the projects that students were working on in class. Teachers attended to meet and talk with families. Everyone benefited from this gathering.